


Home

by BlackPetals4



Category: Doctor Who, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien Invasion, Alien Time Lords (Doctor Who), Background Character Death, Destruction of Gallifrey (Doctor Who), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gallifreyan Culture (Doctor Who), Gallifreyan History (Doctor Who), Gen, Genocide, High Council of Gallifrey (Doctor Who), Losing Family, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regeneration, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Stiles Stilinski Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stiles Stilinski is a Mess, Symbiotic Relationship, The Daleks - Freeform, Time Lord Telepathy (Doctor Who), Time Lords, Time War (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27939785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackPetals4/pseuds/BlackPetals4
Summary: A lone Time Lord is left to pick up the broken pieces after the Time War and finds himself a family on Earth along the way.
Relationships: Claudia Stilinski & Stiles Stilinski, Claudia Stilinski/Noah Stilinski, Melissa McCall & Stiles Stilinski, Melissa McCall/Rafael McCall, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & Noah Stilinski
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	1. Death and Rebirth

_I. Arrival - Death and Rebirth  
_

Every cell in his body as well as his mind were screaming in agony. He could do nothing but lie there on the cold hard floor of his beloved TARDIS as they were flung through the dangerous depths of the Time Vortex without any aim or direction other than _away_. Which had not been imparted by him. The instruction wasn’t changeable for this one journey, the entire console was deadlocked. They couldn’t block his bond with his TARDIS. However, it didn’t make any difference since neither of them were able to think beyond anything but the sheer pain that was tearing them both apart. United in their suffering, the burden they shared wasn’t halved, but doubled. The unfiltered, raw emotion that came with it as well. Losing both of their species all at once was unbearable.

The Time Lord’s own screams were echoed within his head by the telepathic connections he shared with the rest of his people. His people, who were dying, burned alive now and forever. Not one by one, but in large swaths they were ripped out of existence. Erased, broken, silent, like fishing hooks torn out of his flesh they burned his telepathic pathways. His family, his wife and children, his friends, everybody who ever meant something to him, he felt them all slipping away. Their horror and pleading thoughts were hardly distinguishable from the billions of others. He wished he couldn’t tell them apart; he didn’t want to know their last moments. Why wasn’t he with them, he had to go back!

The time-lock was slowly building up around the event, the whole cataclysmic war that threatened to rip the web of time itself apart. His senses were telling him it would be over soon. Afterwards, it would have never happened at all. He would remember every second of it – the Time Lords, the Daleks, the Nightmare Child, and every other unimaginable horror of the Time War – when the rest of the universe would forget as soon as the memories faded from even the last slightly time-aware species.

One second, the searing pain was burning him alive, the next it was abruptly cut off, leaving only eerie silence and phantom sensations. It was wrong, so wrong. The Web was already rearranging itself. The ripples spread out from its former lynchpin and center, now forcefully flowing around Gallifrey without touching upon it. His own timeline was being erased and overwritten as well since it couldn’t have sprung from his time-locked planet. Without a clear starting point, he and the TARDIS had simply come into existence on their own, there had never been any others. This was what turning into a living paradox felt like? Nausea churned in his stomach. The Last Great Time War was over.

A sob tore itself out of his throat, miserable and defeated. Alone.  
His TARDIS, the only being in the universe who understood, tentatively reached out. Without thinking, he latched onto their bond, clinging to her eleven-dimensional conscious like a lost child. She did the same, just as lost as he was, just as alone. Her endless love cradled his mind, soothed the lingering ache a little. It was broken and empty, he still couldn’t form a coherent thought.

He felt numb. His entire race and planet were all gone. His wife and children were all dead. The pain was unimaginable. And he was dying too, he could feel it. Fresh tears were continuously streaming down his face. One that would soon change, taking his current identity with it. Maybe it was for the best, he wanted to die anyways. He should have died with them, wanting nothing more than to go back to be by his loved ones’ sides. They weren’t regenerating, so why should he?

A frantic _hum_ interrupted him, the entwined conscious of his TARDIS reminding him of her presence, begging him not to leave her. Of course, he wouldn’t. He barely held on to consciousness, let alone to any clear thoughts that were needed to stave off a regeneration. Somewhat reassured, his beloved companion whispered something akin to a Gallifreyan lullaby into his ears, old and hauntingly beautiful. The song was soothing balm on his soul, and he sent his deepest gratitude and love back to her.

Their exchange never stopped, until the whole console room suddenly shook in a clear landing impact, startling him out of falling asleep for the last time. The lights went out, leaving only the red glow of the console and his own golden regeneration energy. They had been spat out of the vortex onto some unknown planet at an unknown time period. Tremors of shock were still wrecking his dying body, weak and limp as he was, he wouldn’t get up from the floor to defend himself if necessary. Not that anything dangerous should be able to enter the TARDIS. It didn’t really matter where they had landed. Nothing mattered anymore, besides her. She was the last anchor of his fraying sanity.

Wouldn’t that be ironic? The one they expected to preserve their species, trusted to guard their greatest treasure, lost himself to madness after everything they did to ensure his survival. Time Lords were good at missing the obvious sometimes, no matter how intelligent they claimed to be. Had claimed to be. They were all dead. He was the last of an almost extinct species. Any sense of betrayal he felt was eclipsed by the incomprehensible enormity of his loss. Rassilon, he couldn’t even think about it.

His vision was fading, golden light continued to pour out from under his skin, illuminating the darkened console room around him. It hurt, but not nearly as much as before. The TARDIS’ lullaby grew in tandem with the intensity of his oncoming change.

A knock sounded on the door.

Disbelief colored their shared mind. Who was that? Possibility trees fanned out inside his mind, but he had to avert his gaze, it was too much for his senses right now. A screen above him sluggishly flickered to life above him, showing the environment outside the safe confines of his TARDIS. There, standing by the door were a what looked like a man and a woman. Hazy memories failed him right now, he couldn’t identify the exact species or time period.

The regeneration took him completely the next second, rewriting every strand of DNA but his very core traits. He was vaguely aware he was screaming again. Waves of pure golden energy crashed against the interior of his poor TARDIS. Destructive and barely contained within her walls they raged on, carrying with them the grief of and for an entire planet. Underneath it all, his companion continued her mournful song, enveloping him in her metaphysical arms as tightly as she dared. He wished to be a child again. Safely held within his mother’s arms, shielded from the terrible truths of the universe. Young and hopeful, just starting to explore the world with brand new eyes. Unaware and uncaring of what was to come. His body was changing rapidly now, taking this self’s last thoughts with it. 

Elegant Gallifreyan symbols spelled something out for him on the monitor.

_Beacon Hills, California USA, Earth, 1998; Identified Species: Human_

It was the last thing those eyes would see.

And then, they opened their eyes again for the very first time. Brand new, yet old.   
They felt smaller now. It was the first thing they noticed, not their sex or gender, or whether everything was even intact and working correctly. Their body was still boiling, the last changes weren’t yet finished. Whimpering, they pulled their knees to their chest. Their way up there was far too short. Startled, their eyes roamed over their body. It was male – he felt male too – still glowing faintly, but what was more, it was _tiny_!

His robes were far too large for his frame, how old was he? Panic started to settle in. He was in a child’s body! Something went wrong. His former self’s last thoughts must have influenced his regeneration! How could he survive like this? Children were so much more breakable than adults, and no one would take him seriously. He had just fought in a war and witnessed the death of his world – he couldn’t deal with this now!

In his growing distress, the TARDIS couldn’t find a way to calm him anymore. Her apologetic _hum_ was the only warning he got before the outer doors swung open. Over his rapid breaths and the loud drumbeat rhythm of his hearts, he could hear two startled sounds. Curling into himself, making his form as small as possible, he couldn’t help another terrified sound from escaping his abused throat. He couldn’t defend himself from them, from anyone in this state. 

“ _Hello?_ ”, a female voice called out from the door.

She sounded a bit scared too. What language was she speaking? He didn’t understand what she was saying, his thoughts far too muddled. The translation circuit must have been turned off with most of his TARDIS’ other functions.

A second voice, male, joined her efforts, “ _Hello, who’s there? Do you need help?_ ”

They must have heard him, for he could hear them entering his sanctuary. Steps echoed through the room, nearing his position behind the console. 

“ _Oh. My. GOD!”,_ the male breathed, followed by a shocked inhale at his side. “ _It’s bigger on the inside._ ” 

“Way to state the obvious, Noah…”, she said, and he could understand her now, he realized.

They were speaking English, as was common in the USA, and on Earth in general. He had learned the 50th century version of the language once, at the Academy. It was all gone now, he sobbed. Why couldn’t he keep quiet, why did the TARDIS open her doors? He couldn’t– he needed to be– no, not alone. Never that. He didn’t know what he needed.

“Did you hear that, it’s coming from over there!”, the human named Noah called.

Maybe the TARDIS knew, though. She would have never let those two humans in otherwise. He could trust her to know what was best for his future. The footsteps came closer, the possibility of exposure turned to certainty, all those branches of the future were convening into one.

“Oh my God.”, Noah repeated above his shaking form, “Claudia, it’s a child!” 

Carefully, he untangled his short limbs from his tent-sized red robes, peering upwards. Two pairs of concerned yet cautious eyes stared down on him. One brown, one blue. Lying down there he felt as small and vulnerable as his new body suggested. The pair seemed to understand how intimidating they must seem and moved to kneel down in front of him. And suddenly he knew what he needed.

“ _Help…_ ”, he tried, his voice failing him. Sniffing, he formed a weak sentence, “ _Help me, please.”_

Confusion. He had spoken in Gallifreyan. Nevertheless, their instincts seemed to take over as he spoke. A _traumatized_ little human child at their feet, for all intents and purposes, they couldn’t resist coming closer to see if he was hurt or needed protection. No matter they couldn’t tell if he was dangerous or not, or actually a human child.

“Hey, hey.”, Claudia murmured, “It’s okay, we won’t hurt you, I promise.”

She kept up her reassuring tone and manner, soft brown doe eyes never wavering from his own. What color would they be when he looked into a mirror for the first time?

“Please, help me. _Please_ …”, he rasped, finally switching to English. 

The humans looked honestly caught off guard at his sudden ability to communicate in their native language, having apparently given up on the notion considering their current alien environment. For about a second, they just gaped at him before springing into action once more.

“You– Of course we will help you!”, Noah was the first to recover, “Can you tell me if you are hurt somewhere? Why are you…glowing?”

“I’ll be okay…” He closed his eyes at the lie, he would never be okay again, but “It’s– it’s excess energy from…healing.” From dying, from being born. Coughing, a whisp of regeneration energy escaped his lips and floated towards the TARDIS’ ceiling. 

“Oh…”, he sounded unsure, “Okay, kid. Can you move?”

Kid. He would have to get used to being called that from actual children. Quickly shaking his head, he saw clear concern flashing through their eyes once more. His TARDIS approved.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Everything. 

“Tired.”, he whispered instead, then reconsidered, “In shock.”

Noah immediately peeled off his jacket, carefully draping the large fabric it over the red robes pooling around his small form. “That okay?”, he gently inquired.

For once, he didn’t have an answer. This kindness they were showing him so freely made his throat constrict and his breath hitch. His tight nod was contradicted by the tears falling faster again. Why was he crying? He couldn’t find it within himself to care, all sense of shame and mortification burned out by fire.

“Oh sweety, can I touch you?” Claudia carefully stretched out her hand towards him. Asking for permission was the last straw.

“Please!”, he was begging now, sobbing openly, unashamed of his tears in front of those kind strangers. No one would judge him here.

The physical comfort of her light touches ruffling his hair and petting his arm through his makeshift blanket added to the soft tunes of the TARDIS’ melody. His body finally stopped shaking, going plaint under her gentle hands. She felt warm, just like his mother when he was a child. He cried harder at the thought. Taking this as a sign, Claudia pulled him into her lap, wrapping her long, elegant arms around him safely. His mother had never done that. After a while, two minutes and seventy-point-six seconds, another hand joined hers, resting on his back.

“What’s your name?” 

Gallifreyan, and very long. A secret to all but those he told it to willingly. A promise to his wife upon marriage. Too complicated for a human tongue to pronounce. No one else in the entire universe knew it now or would be able to say it in its entirety. He allowed himself to mourn it too, alongside the names of his family and friends. In a way, the person who bore that name was forever gone as well. His designation from the Academy wasn’t actually a name, more of a placeholder for the one he would choose later. In need of an answer, he decided to tell them the nickname he had allowed his loved ones to call him by. An abbreviation of his real name, instead of his now obsolete title.

“Stiles. My name is Stiles.” 


	2. Settling In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' first steps into a new life.

_II. First Steps - Settling In_

It was no secret to anyone who knew the pair that Noah and Claudia wished for a child. Their shared dream would bring them the greatest fulfillment, and they would cherish this wonder their deep love brought to life. For over a year nothing changed. The young couple prepared themselves for visits to a medical specialist to determine the underlining cause. And then, one cold December night before any calls could be made and wild speculations frazzled their nerves even more, a gardening shed fell out of the sky.

Thoroughly distracted by the strange sounds they went into their backyard to investigate. They looked around only to find nothing amiss. The crash had shaken their little house in its frightening intensity, so its origins had to have been very close. Both of them agreed it had to have come from their own garden, and his respective careers in the army and with the police taught Noah to be instantly alert and suspicious. His weapon in hand, he made his round through the bushes, coming up with nothing.

“Nothing. I searched around our house and everything is normal. The neighbors didn’t see anything either.”

“It was way too close and too big for us not to notice. There has to be…something” she trailed off head half-turned.

“Yeah, your mother’s china almost– “

“Noah.” Claudia was still fixating something in the corner of her eye.

“What?” he said, confused as to why she had seemingly frozen at the sight of their gardening shed.

“Can’t you see it?” she whispered, pale and wide-eyed.

“Our shed?”

“Noah, we don’t have a shed. Or did you build one in the last few minutes to surprise me?”

He did a double take. A startled “Oh…” passed his lips.

Blinking rapidly at the revelation, the image didn’t change. A brand-new wooden gardening shed had integrated itself seamlessly into the picture of their previously empty backyard, fitting snugly next to Claudia’s wild strawberries. Noah hadn’t even noticed there was anything wrong with what he was seeing, and that didn’t sit right with him. He knew what their backyard looked like, day or night, and he would have simply glazed over it had his wife not spotted it. Something was wrong with this innocuous looking construct. Meeting Claudia’s eyes, he saw the same unease reflected back at him. Thoughts synchronized they approached the shed with great caution.

The little glass windows on the sides emitted no light, and it was too dark to see what lay inside. They had to admit it felt a bit silly to fear a gardening shed of all things, but upon closer inspection the details didn’t add up. The earth around it was clearly disturbed and the grass slightly singed. It didn’t look new. Rather, the wooden planks that made up its walls were slightly mossy in some places and showed clear sings of at least a few years of exposure to the elements. And yet, there wasn’t a single hole between the planks to be found. It seemed almost airtight. Something was just off about it, and Noah trusted his wife and his instincts above all else.

They held their breaths and knocked on the door. Nothing happened at first. Until the windows lit up in a brilliant golden light, startling the two of them in its sudden intensity. It bathed the garden around them in an eerie light and a strange, weighted silence that contributed to the dream-like quality of the experience. The night reclaimed its providence soon, leaving the darkness around them even more impenetrable than before. The unnatural hush that had fallen over the land like a spell dissipated. Noah and Claudia had held their breath as well. Their eyes met, and just as they wanted to sigh in quiet relief that nothing more happened, the door to the shed swung open. Inside there was only a strange red glow that pierced the darkness of the building’s interior.

And as if they had never seen a single horror movie in their lives, human curiosity won over and they accepted the silent invitation. Unaware of how the discovery within its depths would change their future.

They hadn’t known what to expect, of course, but what they found was something they could have never dreamed up in their wildest imagination. This shed was bigger on the inside than it had any right to be, and the sheer alien design made it clear they had stepped into a whole different world far beyond human knowledge. The round room had a high ceiling. Its walls were of a crystalline structure, reflecting the eerie red light from the center. Natural support beams grew from the walls as if they were carved from the same, massive crystal. In the middle where the light emanated from, they could see a raised dais, a round platform with stairs leading up to it left and right, encircled by a spun from the same glass-like rock. They couldn’t be quite sure what the large, dark box between the two staircases was, but if this was an actual alien spacecraft, there had to be some kind of console. Behind it, a great central column rose from the podium, different from the support beams around them. It was a tube. The glowing red crystal inside was intricately carved, refracturing the light inside and painting beautiful shapes all around them.

Claudia closed her mouth that had dropped open in silent wonder. Something not of this world had landed in her garden, and they still had to find out what it was. As beautiful as it was, this place could be very dangerous. They were breathing oxygen, at least, but who knew why this…ship had crashed, and who manned it, for that matter. Speaking of, should they announce themselves? Whoever was in here, they had to know they were there already, or the door wouldn’t have opened.

“Hello?” 

___________

Noah had never felt more out of his depth than he did that night. His wife and he had found an actual crashed spaceship in their backyard. One that disguised itself as a gardening shed and was bigger on the inside. Not to mention the actual living, breathing, crying alien child in his wife’s arms. He wasn’t even sure if it was a child, or if it merely looked like one. The boy seemed to be no older than six at the most, though four would be his best guess. Big brown eyes and soft brown hair, thin limbs and pale skin, cheeks red and puffy from crying his heart out. He didn’t look dangerous in the slightest, had even asked them for help. _In their own language_ when his own, melodious and echoing like an ancient melody, hadn’t worked. The sound of it was so far from anything he had ever heard, unearthly and beautiful. The sudden switch to English was jarring and entirely unexpected.

It made him wonder though, if what they saw was real. The boy, Stiles, he couldn’t be human. And yet, he spoke their language. Either it had been taught to him, he could imitate a language he heard, alien technology was to blame, or…his wife was holding something that had taken the body of a child. Possession of some kind or shapeshifting could not be ruled out at this point. If that was the case, what should he do? But that was all speculation, his emotions and mannerisms seemed too raw to be a lie. Stiles said he was healing, so it stood to reason that he hadn’t meant to land in their garden and his plea for help was genuine. The question was what they should do now. The boy had cried himself to sleep. Noah couldn’t do nothing; it went against every moral fiber and instinct engrained into his being to leave this little child to his own devices. His wife would never stand for that as well.

“Let’s put him in the guest room.” he suggested.

Claudia nodded. “I’ll carry him. Could you put some linen on that bed and get a blanket?”

“Yeah. He isn’t too heavy?”

“I’ll manage.”

She stood up with Stiles cradled in her arms, careful not to wake him. It was then Noah could see it, the future they had envisioned might have just literally fallen out of the sky and into their lives. They had wished for a child, maybe this was the answer. Like a sign from above, a twist of fate.

They returned to their house in thoughtful silence and laid Stiles into bed and went into the kitchen to make some coffee. They were far too awake and excited to go to bed anytime soon, and they had a lot to discuss. Sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, they sipped from their mugs and let the coldness of the December air outside melt away. 

“So…that happened.” said Claudia.

“Mhmm…I can pinch you if you want to check we’re not dreaming.”

She huffed and laughed in disbelief. “Honestly, maybe that’s not a bad idea. It’s just…”

“…unbelievable? The weirdest thing that ever happened, possibly to anyone, ever?”

“Yeah, that. Noah, what do we do? I mean, the kid, Stiles, he asked us for help. They way he fell apart…something hurt him and I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been for him to sound this broken.”

Guilt twisted inside his stomach. He had noticed and still thought the child might be dangerous. Noah was an officer of the law. He had joined the police force for this exact reason. To help and protect those who couldn’t do it themselves. Here was a little kid, asking – no, begging – for his help, and he was hesitating. He may have given Stiles his jacket, but the true hero this night had been Claudia. The unwavering goodness of her heart and her strong spirit were inspiring to watch, and he always felt privileged to know and love this woman. She was his and he was hers. And now, maybe a new element would be added to their equation. A little boy that needed them.

“Well, until he feels better, and we know he has somewhere else to go. We’ll offer him a place with us if he wants it and keep him safe.”

“Agreed, I hope he feels comfortable enough to stay, at least for a while.” she nodded. “But Stiles is…definitely not human. The way he glowed and coughed up this golden energy, and how he talked when we came in…we found an alien child in our backyard.” Claudia’s bewildered expression mirrored his own. “We probably shouldn’t mention him to anyone yet. No one came looking, let’s hope his arrival went unnoticed.”

“Yeah…that would be for the best, I think. We need a cover story if someone spots him or…if he stays here for longer than a few weeks.”

“Our little town is a bit too rural for him to have come on his own from somewhere else, and too small for people not to get suspicious if we say he came from Beacon Hills. He shares more than a passing resemblance to me. I think we could pass him off as the child of my cousin or something.”

“I didn’t know you had a cousin. Seems plausible enough, but I’ll need to know more about your family if we want to make this convincing.”

She smiled as she spun her stories about her family from Poland. They sounded like a lively bunch. Just like her. They spent most of the night talking until the first light of dawn graced the horizon. 

___________

  
Stiles was as much an enigma to Noah and Claudia as they were to him at first. Their mannerisms and customs were alien to him, his whole environment so different from his own planet. He had never felt so out of place before, not even during his travels after he had graduated from the Academy. He struggled not to drown in his grief and adjust to his new situation. The days went by as they tried to find a new rhythm. It was very hard for all of them as endless war loss had made him too unstable to leave on his own, and he knew it. He had no choice but to rely on the humans.

There was a strange tension present in all their interactions at first, and it didn’t help how he would be distant and formal out of habit on top of a myriad of other issues. He could barely stomach any food and only ventured outside if necessary, was jumpy, paranoid, and prone to nightmares. Which was a bigger problem than he had anticipated. In his new body, he needed to sleep far more than usual, a few hours a week where one hour or less a month had been common. As it turned out, with the body of a child came the brain chemistry of a child. Stiles broke into tears so easily now, unused to such strong emotions and still deeply wounded from Gallifrey’s fall.

Illogical behavior aside, they seemed to understand that he was not a child in body only. Reluctant as though he was to divulge Gallifrey’s secrets, he could see it was more important to explain his appearance to them as best as he could. As accepting as they were, which was a miracle on its own, there was a certain discomfort and uncertainty to their interactions with him until he solved the issue. Stiles could kind of understand why a child behaving like he did was unsettling to them. Children of Gallifrey were very different than human children, but he had been to other planets where children took years to grow up and didn’t behave in the most logical of ways.

Stiles did his best to describe regeneration in the most basic of terms, and how his had been triggered by events he didn’t feel comfortable to disclose at the moment, though they had to be traumatic to produce this result. A failed regeneration wasn’t unheard of, but the way this one had gone was as painful as it was embarrassing. His people would have mocked him. In comparison, Noah and Claudia were only sympathetic despite their inability to truly understand. That thought was a bitter reminder that it didn’t matter anymore what his people would have done since there were none of them left to judge him.

He couldn’t help himself though, thoughts of home continued to plague him day and night. Stiles saw reminders of his family everywhere. Claudia’s smile and Noah’s steadiness made his mind wander to his wife. She had been his rock, the love of his lives. He couldn’t bear to think too much about her yet. Just as he had to push away the memories of his girls, ashamed by his weakness. Shouldn’t he remember them instead of trying to banish them from his thoughts? But it wasn’t like he had much success in that endeavor anyways. One part of his too-big brain was always occupied by them. Had his mind not been layered and capable of pursuing multiple trains of thought at the same time, the weight of their absence would have made living – surviving – through the days impossible. 

His mind was still reaching out into the emptiness where his connections to them should have been. It was so silent. And sometimes he could swear he heard a whisper of something, only to desperately trying to reach for what wasn’t there. A phantom sensation, he came to understand, like a lost limb tingling when the brain needed to fill in a blank space where there should have been information.

If only it were just a whisper, a small tingle, all the time. Alas, the universe wasn’t as kind. Some nights were worse than others, with a chorus of screams echoing through his mind, lighting his nerves on fire. He wanted to scream with them, to lose himself in madness and never wake up again. There wouldn’t be any silence to endure, only the pain of suffering with them. That, he could endure far better.

Yet, every time he thought about throwing himself into the void, there would be new voices reaching out to him. Real anchors that kept him from drifting. His TARDIS did her best to sing so loud it reverberated through his entire being, giving him a more physical headache to boot. Then, there were the humans. Whenever he disappeared for too long, they would search for him and often find him lying in bed, either in the TARDIS or inside their guest room. They wouldn’t try to force him out, but rather stay with him. First, they were sitting next to his bed, holding his hands or brushing through his hair, talking about this and that, not asking anything of him. Soon enough, they laid down next to him, encircling him in their arms and giving off such a feeling of safety and acceptance he couldn’t possibly turn away. He couldn’t participate in their conversation, but their presence and the sound of their calm voices cut through the storm inside. It allowed him to refocus on the present.   
Wrangling with his thoughts on the matter afterwards never failed to make him deeply uncomfortable. He was scared that he would one day follow through with it and any hope for recovery would be lost. It would mean the end of his species as well as his own. He couldn’t do that.

Noah and Claudia never pushed him to explain what the problem was, showing that he could lean on them in exchange for nothing. Their kindness humbled him. The comfort his humans provided was contributing to healing his broken mind. He didn’t know what he would have done without them, though was hard to accept their help as he often didn’t want to admit to his own weakness. Even though he had asked for it when he had first fallen into their lives. Thankfully, they didn’t take it personally when he stonewalled them at times. Pushing them away with his aloof demeanor and Gallifreyan pride, only to seek out their company a little later, or needing their help with an episode. It helped to build trust between them, and Stiles felt more inclined to stay with them in this little bubble of peace and calm with every day that passed. What were the chances of him finding such a place anywhere ever again? Somewhere he connected with, fell into place like he belonged. He didn’t want to leave, drifting through space and time aimlessly. The loneliness of such an existence would drive him insane.

Therefore, he tentatively reached out to them one day three months into his stay and finally addressed the elephant in the room. The hard truth he wasn’t ready to talk about, maybe not ever, but couldn’t keep from them any longer. When he finally spoke about the terrible truth behind his situation, they listened with wide eyes and sense of horror. Sympathy was not the same as understanding, of course, but he wouldn’t wish for them to know what it felt like to lose everything. He had only asked for a little more time to recover and said he wouldn’t bother them if they wanted to get back to their old live. Turning it upside-down had never been his intention. Their answer had not been what he had imagined at all.

“Stiles, if you want to stay, we would be very happy to have you here.”, not a shred of doubt colored Noah’s voice.

“You’re not a burden, sweetie. We’re the type to look forwards, not to go back. I don’t think I could, after the last few months you’ve lived with us.”, Claudia said. 

Noah agreed. “We’ve discussed this before and we would like to offer you a place with us, in our family.”

Stiles had never expected for the human couple to adopt him as their own. And yet, it was exactly what happened as soon as the Stilinskis found out he had no one left and nowhere to call home aside from his own ship. They wanted to have a child anyways, they said. He hardly believed they meant a child like him. Someone that had the appearance of one but couldn’t be farther from what they had likely expected.

Staying with them required becoming legally a citizen of Earth, of America. It was a long-winded, complicated process for someone who had simply materialized in the Stilinski’s backyard with a space-time ship in the middle of the night. The decision to take the couple up on their offer to live with them and for him to join human society was simultaneously easier and harder than he had thought it would be.

Noah was a police officer. A deputy in the small town of Beacon Hills. Arranging for Stiles to stay was greatly eased by his position, but he was more observant than the average human. As such, it was hard to hide his struggles in adjusting not only to human interaction, but also a life without constant war. He had sat down with him in the TARDIS’ kitchen and told him that this part of his tale he could understand the best, as Noah himself had been a soldier not too long ago as well. Despite not having served that long, there were certain mannerisms and problems he recognized in Stiles. He talked openly about his own issues, not pressuring Stiles to do the same. It was eye opening in a way, that humans confided in one another and even someone who wasn’t family. His wife would have been the only one he could confess his fears to. The only thing he asked for was a list of things to avoid doing in Stiles’ presence. Though some of them, he seemed to have caught onto already. Like his aversion to loud noises and sudden movement, being caught unawares, or the sight of weapons. 

Claudia, on the other hand, was an elementary school teacher. Her calm, concise, non-judgmental explanations of Earth’s customs and human interaction were a blessing. It had been several millennia since his last lessons on what the Time Lords called Sol 3. Its inhabitants had never been amongst his favorite species. At least not back then. His opinion on humans was rapidly changing the longer he spent learning about them first-hand. He understood The Doctor’s tendency to travel with them much better now. Compared to his people, they were primitive, true, but that didn’t mean they weren’t intelligent. Their faces when he had told them how many millennia had passed since he had learned about humanity and their (partially future) history were priceless.

Weeks of more preparation later, mental and physical, he felt ready to face people other than Claudia and Noah to finalize the process. He found he rather liked the sound of _Stiles Stilinski_. Why Claudia felt the need to settle him with something else on his official documents, he would never understand. Apparently, he was now named after his grandfather, all according to some long-standing Stilinski family tradition. Well, he could hardly refuse if they put it like that.  
The embarrassment that followed when other humans tried to pronounce that name made him wish he had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that ended up being a far longer chapter than I had anticipated. I hope you enjoyed it! Productive criticism is, of course, always welcome here. So feel free to leave a review on your way out.  
> The next chapter is mostly done as well and who knows, if I'm motivated enough I will post it soon!^^

**Author's Note:**

> I've recently watched Teen Wolf with my younger sibling and found it highly entertaining. Strangely enough, Stiles character left much more of an impression than I anticipated and I can't stop thinking about some AUs with him. As I tend to do, I just started writing and an interesting plot wove itself into existence.  
> This won't be a long fic. It's not my main project either (that's Drowning in Fire), so I can't promise I'll update fast, but it will be finished!  
> Please feel free to leave kudos or a comment. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames not so much.  
> Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!


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